Mercy killing

A friend sent this to me and I think that it is worth sharing:

We were talking about life and death.

I said to her, "Don't let me live like a vegetable, completely dependent upon a machine, getting fed from a bottle. If I ever come to that state, switch off all those machines and remove the bottle..."

She got up, switched off the TV and the computer and took away my beer bottle....

***

Home: Manju Kapur

During the last trip to India, I had bought Manju Kapur's new book, "Home". I had earlier read her "Difficult daughters" and liked it.

Kapur's book is set in Karol Bagh area of Delhi in nineteen sixties and seventies. That was one reason, why I wanted to read this book as I had grown up in the same area and I could identify with some of the characters of the book very easily. In that sense the book does not disappoint. Once I started reading it, I could only stop when I had finished it. Reading words like "Ajmal Khan Road" or the descriptions of sari shops in Karol Bagh, evoked quick images of real places and persons that I had known.

The book is about the Banwari Lal family. The shop owner Banwari Lal, his sons Yashpal and Pyarelal and their wives and children and it explores the world of joint families. This world of joint families is not the large happy make-believe families of Suraj Barjatya films. It is a world trying to grapple with complexities of adjusting your aspirations and individualities with those of the others inside closed walls of the house, facing challenges of generational changes, trying to accomodate growing children in narrow personal spaces and even narrower working spaces.

This world of joint families does have altruistic elders, a mutual support system and intimacy that makes joint family living such a pleasure and a pain, but the book does not dwell much on these aspects, it rather focuses on tensions and rivalaries, almost a Darwinian struggle of finding your own space for catching the sunlight and growing up, escaping the shadows of the others, who came before you or who have more rights than you.

The book has a large set of characters, the patriarch, his wife, two sons, their wives and children, a dead daughter and her family etc. The first part of the book focuses on a few of these characters, esepcially on Sona, married to the elder son Yashpal and her sister, Rupa, married to a teacher, Prem Nath. Sona, beautiful, insecure and anxious can't have children while younger brother Pyarelal's ordinary looking wife Sushila quickly has the required sons, Ajay and Vijay. Ten years after the marriage finally Sona has a daughter, Nisha and then a son, Raju.

Death of Banwari Lal's daughter and their decision to take the daughter's son, Vicky in the house with them and Vicky's relationship with Sona, is the subject of the first part of the book. Sona, childless at that time, is expected to take care of Vicky. Vicky's adolescence and his first sexual experiments with his young cousin, Nisha make the family send Nisha to live with her childless aunt, Rupa. Nisha grows up and falls in love with a boy of another caste, and when the family finds out about it, this relationship is quickly snubbed out. Manglik Nisha can't find a husband and remains a spinster in the house, till she decides to set up her own business of making readymade clothes. Success of this business coincides with her marriage to a childless widower and the book ends with her pregnancy and the decision to leave the readymade clothes business.

In terms of characterisations, Kapur paints with a large brush with expressionist brush-strokes, giving a few details here and there and leaving you to fill in the rest from your own imagination. Except for Sona and Rupa, and to a lesser extent, Vicky, Yashpal and Banwari Lal, all other characters in the first part of the book remain shadowy figures. For example, Pyarelal and his wife Sushila, are cardboard characters, there is nothing distinctive about them that you can remember after finishing reading the book. In the same way, the second half of the book concentrates on Nisha, excluding almost everyone else. This helps you to focus on the main story of the book, even as it creates a feeling of dis-satisfaction about other persons in the book.

So compared to another large family story like "A Suitable Boy" by Vikran Seth, here family is just a setting and the story still remains limited to a few main characters and is not a proper joint family saga.

Kapur uses fairly simple language. There is hardly a phrase in the book that you stop to re-read to savour the words construction or profound ideas. Her language is just a tool to tell the story.

There are a few episodes of sex scattered throughout the book. Though it is still does not reach the level of explicit sex in the Harold Robbbins or Sidney Sheldon books written more than thirty years ago, but compared to the staid world of women writers of Indian literature (I confess that I still haven't read anything by Shobha De!), it does seem daring.

Vicky's violence on young Nisha or Nisha's own experience with her fumbling boyfriend, both are explicit enough to make us understand why her character feels and behaves the way she does. Another sex scene between Rupa and Premnath, does not serve the story in any way but it makes the two characters more real. The book throws in an occasional "chutiya" in colloquial way, probably for authenticity.

Overall, the book is a good read, even if I had liked "Difficult daughters" much more. Once you finish it, it does not leave any strong characters in your mind, rather it is all about persons who were shaped by their destinies and they could do little to fight it or to shape it in their own ways. So, after a few days of reading the book you will just remember that it was a good read, but may forget the characters and the story.

***

Coffee art

Italians prefer their coffee in small cups. In a bar you can ask for an espresso, at home you make it with moca, but you drink it in small cups. Small amount of concentrated coffee with strong aroma.

Friends from India when they first try it, they think that it must be really strong. "It is like poison", one of my friends had said. But actually it is supposed to be strong only in the flavour and much low on caffeine than those long glasses of watery brew you get in USA.

If you wish for higher dose of caffeine, you can ask for a lungo (longer) or if you are in Rome, you can ask for Alto (higher) but don't expect a larger cup. It would be still in a small cup. If in espresso, you got about 3 cm of coffee for a lungo, you may get about 5 cm. An amount that you can drink in a gulp.

In real good bars, they would bring the cup of espresso with an equally small glass of water. You are supposed to drink water and clean your mouth before tasting your coffee so that full flavour can be felt.

Italians forced to live abroad, often say that the thing they miss most is their coffee in small cups and friends and family members coming to meet them are requested to bring bags of Italian coffee for the moca.

Some people prefer macchiato (pronounced makkiato, means spotted or marked), where you add just just a dash of foamy milk or cream. Macchiato can also be an art form, as you can see from these art coffee cups from the Thai coffee website Roytawan. You can use the different colours, textures and consistencies of milk, cream, foam, coffee and choclate powder to make designs in your coffee cups.

***

Invisible threads

My wife says that potato chips are bound to each other by an invisible thread. If you pick up one, the next one comes up automatically. Perhaps, thoughts are the same. Only that, one thought leads to another completely different. Thus, thinking in terms of potato chips, potato chip leads to a jalebi, that goes to a samosa and so on!

As I pedal my bicycle in the morning to the work, most of the time riding the bicycle and negotiating the traffic happens in automatic mode and my mind meanders in different directions. I am convinced that some of those ideas are terrific but the problem is that by the time I reach office and want to write them down, I can't remember most of them!

That is how it was this morning. I was pedalling furiously. Behind our house, they are cutting deep gashes in the green fields. A new road is going to come up there. Further ahead, a new access to the highway is flattening the existing hills and building new hills. Even further, the railway tracks are being moved so that the high speed train lines can be put in their place. Our part of the city is changing face!

The side effect is that the road is full of dust and with the strong humidity in the night, every morning my bicycle wheels raise up drops of dusty glue that sticks to my pants.

And I was thinking about the Anarchytect post I had read in the morning about buildings, spaces, layouts. For a lot of things, I realise that I am very superficial. Buildings are part of those things. I mean, a building is a building, full stop. Thinking of spaces as something alive, that you mould and shape like dough for making chapattis, seems kind of strange. Seeing the landscape around our house changing in front of us, I know it is true but I still keep on believing that the landscape is something physical, fixed, unchangeable, so why think about it!

Another of these things is art. I mean, you watch a nice painting and instinctively you know whether you like it or not. What need is there to dissect it, analyse it?

You are wrong of course, you just need to read the Hindi article of Om Thanvi on Starry Nights of Van Gogh in MOMA in New York to understand how wrong you are. There are eleven stars he writes. The bottom most star, its luminous white contrasting with the wonderful yellow of the moon is probably the morning star that Van Gogh saw from the window of his sanatorium and wrote about it to Theo, his brother. The spire of the church in the background is more like the Dutch churches of Van Gogh's childhood and not the French churches surrounding his sanatorium. The cypress tree in the left rising up like a peacock feather, is it a death wish? Van Gogh did die a few months after making this painting.

Once you read that article of Om Thanvi, it changes the way you look at this painting. It is no longer a question of if you like it or not, you can understand it and see things that you did not see earlier.

Suddenly my thoughts about starry nights and Van Gogh were interrupted by a new song in my earphones. I religiously put on my ipod when I start from my home but I hardly ever remember the songs I have heard during the journeys. But this song was great and different. Ajnabi Shehar it is called and it is from Jaaneman, I found out later. The singer, perhaps Sonu Nigam, sounded just like Rafi did in those wonderful songs from a film called Jhuk Gaya Aasman! It had came out in 1968 and had music by Shanker Jaikishen and had Rajendra Kumar and Saira Banu in it. Not that I liked Rajendra Kumar or Saira banu. There is no rational explanation for this jump from Ajnabi Shaher to Jhuk Gaya Aasman, but that's how thought are. Unpredictable and irrational.

What was the story of JGA like? It had something to do with death. I thought furiously, weaving the bicycle between cars stuck in a traffic jam. Rajendra Kumar dies in it, but then comes back. Actually there were two Rajendra Kumars. One poor and nice, in love with Saira Banu. The other rich and bad. The bad one was supposed to die but by mistake, Yama kills the young and poor. By the time they realise the mistake, his body has been cremated or whatever, so the good one goes in the body of the bad one. I had seen it on a black and white TV in the prehistoric days of Indian TV.

JGA had same story as of the Warren Beatty film, Paradise lost or can wait or something like that! This last bit of knowledge is fairly recent that Bollywood had started copying long time ago. But JGA had lovely songs and this song from Jaaneman reminded me of it - except that it is better, having strange interludes between the stanzas, changing the music styles completely each time.

While trying to think of the Jhuk Gaya Aasman songs, I braked in front of a truck of leaves-collectors in the park, that was blocking the path. By now all the trees in the park are naked with skinny arms and the beautiful golden, yellow, kathai, burnt siena of autumn leaves has been replaced by a rotting mass on the ground that sticks to your shoes and to bicycle wheels, making a squashing sucking sound as you walk on it. The leaves-collectors looked like ghost-busters from the film of the same name, with a motor in their backpack and holding thick tubes blowing hissing air like giant earthworms, pushing the sticky gooey mass towards the suction pump of the truck. Leaves-ghost-busters they are, picking up dead leaves, I thought.

Can trees have ghosts too? I had arrived in the office and so the question remained unanswered and like the last dream of the morning, it also slowly dissipated into nothingness.

***

Exploring madness

Recently I saw the "Exploring Madness", a series of short films by Dr. Parvez Imam. He is a doctor and a documentary film maker. The films are very brief, each lasting 3-4 minutes only.

The one I liked most was where he tells about women who are brought to a mental health hospital and left there by the family. Often, the families give a wrong address to the hospital, so that they can not be traced. After a few months, when the women are cured or are better, they want to go back to their homes, but the law does not allow persons treated for mental health problems to go out alone. Their only way to go out of the hospital is if some family member comes to accompany them. For many of them, no one ever comes to take them back so they are doomed to wait in the mental hospitals for ever. It was heart rending in the film to listen to the women who kept on saying, she had two children and she wanted to go back to her family.

I appreciated that the film respects the privacy of persons it interviews. And I liked the briefness of films. Even in their briefness, they make a clear point and touch the heart. I think that it requires a deep understanding of the theme and a strong empathy, to come up with something like this.

In the film, a lawyer tells about the Indian laws relating to mental illness. In India, if you are declared mentally ill, you lose all your civil rights, including the right to vote or to marry. For the law, it is justifiable reason for asking for a divorce. So like those women doomed to eternal wait for the families to come back and take them, there are many other areas of human rights violations of persons with mental health problems.

However, you can be cured of mental illness. Often mental illnesses are cyclical in nature, so there are periods when you are better. Doesn't the law allow you to regain your civil rights once the doctor treating you has certified that you are better? That sounds very cruel and unfair!

While watching the film I remembered some episodes from a period of life, that I had almost forgotten. It was the time when I was a PG student in anaesthesia at Willingdon hospital (or the Dr Ram Manohar Lohia hospital) in Delhi. Some times there were calls from the mental health unit accross the Tal Katora road and sometimes, I did go there to provide anaesthesia for persons receiving electric shocks (ECT). As shocks also produce convulsions in the body, through anaesthesia, you can relax the muscles so that they don't get hurt or pains afterwards.

I was thinking that in those days, I had never stopped on the way to look around in the mental health unit. It was only rushing to the ECT room and back. Perhaps, just the sight of ECT scared me so much that I didn't want to think about it?

At that time, I did not know that many organisations of "survivors of psychiatric services" are fighting against ECT, they feel that it is inhuman treatment and not useful. However, the textbooks of medicines continue to teach students about usefulness of ECT in certain conditions.

***

The Indian Way: Living in multi-cultural, multi-religious societies

The lady smiled at me. She was one of those culturally aware kinds who want to be sensitive to persons of other cultures. "I know you are not a Christian, but at least I can wish you for a happy new year." Meaning, she will not offend me by wishing me "Merry christmas"!

I guess that it is the western way of thinking that likes things to be neatly divided and separated and put into neat labelled boxes. Thus people with different religions and expected behaviours, the politically correct things to say about them, all are stored in those boxes. There is no place for ambiguity or confusion there.

Europe needs to respond and adapt to the multi-cultural societies, legacies of its colonial past, accelerated by growing globalisation and hordes of desperates who flee from underdeveloped world in makeshift boats to land on Spanish or Italian coasts, or crossing in from Eastern Europe. The European society, even with some differences between the Roman Catholics and the different protestant chruches, had long been uniform culturally, leaving aside some minorities. It is still groping for answers about how to deal with multiculturism imposed on it by the emigrants.

And so, for not offending the non Christians, some say, no more public lighting and displays for Christmas. Others like the lady above, feel that respecting other religions means not mentioning anything about your own religion to others.

Co-habitation between religions in India

I was thinking about the contrast of such thinking from my own growing up experience in India. For Gurupurab, I knew that the prabhat-feri passed very early in the morning, so I would wake up early to get my dose of kacchi lassi from the truck that came down from the Gurudwara, temple of the Sikhs.

Coming out from a Hindu temple, we did not ask people if they were Hindu, Muslim or Sikh before offering them a bit of prasad.

When Irene, our neighbour came with the plate of sweet seewiyan for Idd, we were taught to say, "Idd mubarak".

In the morning, when I saw Sajid bhai I would say Salaam Valekum and he would answer with a namastey. For the midnight mass of Christmas, more than once I went to the Cathedral near Gol Dakhana in Delhi and when everyone else around made the sign of cross, I also did. It was just another way of ringing the temple bell.

Religious ambiguity, the smudged confines between different religions, is part of Indian identity. By venturing in the other religions, by embracing them, by celebrating them you didn't loose your own identity.

Western preoccupation with neat separate categories

Perhaps that is part of Indian system of logic, I am asking myself. We have a particular way of thinking that does not seek the clean separate boxes with neat labels, so dear to the western thinking?

Sometime ago, I was reading a book that talked about a census carried out under British in early 1900s. During the census, a huge number of persons in Punjab had declared themselves to be Hindu-Sikhs. No, you can't be a Hindu-Sikh, you have to be either Hindu or Sikh, choose one, they were told. It laid the grounds for creating divisions among Hindus and Sikhs in Punjab, the book claimed.

Perhaps, the British did have a clear strategy for dividing and ruling India or perhaps this was just a by-product of western way of thinking that does not accept ambiguity that we seem to embrace?

In a world that is dominated by great conflicts between the three monotheistic religions Christians, Jews and Muslims, I sense that we are moving towards polarisations. Everyone seems closed in their own boundaries with common spaces bounded by rules that they call "tollerance and respect for all religions". To me, it seems a way of saying, I believe that I am superior, my religion is better, but I will not waste my time in telling you about it, so just lets not talk about it.

The way forward

This polarised way of thinking is seeping in India as well, by well meaning persons. Unfortunately.

But I think that there are lot of merits in our Indian way of reasoning, that does not call for "tollerance and respect", it calls for "embracing and acceptance" of the other.

We don't need to stop public displays of joy at Christmas, we need to extend it to other religions, so that we can celebrate festivals of others, like we celebrate our own.

May be western way of logical, rational thought, that prefers clean unambiguous answers is good for somethings like science and information technology, while our own Indian confused, inclusive, ambiguous way is better for other things, especially about religions and about living together!

***

In India

It was the first time that I came to India through Bangalore. We were going to have a regional meeting on traditional medicine. The arrival hall of Bangalore international airport was a shock. Though the Delhi international airport is quite a let down but Bangalore was even worse. All the thoughts about Bangalore being the silicon valley of India and an international symbol of the new resurgent India seemed like a joke when we arrived in that airport. They are building a new airport I was told, but a city that hosts the new infotech giants seems to be taking a rather long time in getting its act together!

Outside, the narrow streets of Bangalore choking with traffic, blaring horns and an unfinished fly-over close to the airport, is in sharp contrast with its bright shops selling top international brands. We were staying on Brigade road off the famous MG Road. The row of shops selling computers and latest infotech gadgets, and the swanky malls seemed out of the first world, squeezed in the third world of old poor India.

The traditional medicine meeting was organised in collaboration with People's International Health University and Ayurvedic medical college of Bangalore had participants from Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. It was very interesting and provided an opportunity for reflecting on the dominance of western thought that relegates everything else to "old, traditional, indigenous" boundaries. That ancient wisdom of milleniums that have resulted in systems of medicines like ayurveda, yunnani and sidha, are forced to "prove" themselves "scientifically" is a sign of that dominance.

Naturally we found time to go around the city for some tourist visit. The old palace of Tipu sultan completed in 1791 is beautiful with its dark browns and mahagony. On the last day, on my way to the airport, Krishna, our driver, insisted on taking me to the Shiv temple next to the Kids Kemp shopping centre. The giant statues of Ganesh and Shiv in this temple are very imposing.

***

On 19th, I flew to delhi. I had some work but mostly these days in Delhi are for family reunions. Delhi is the new home of Luca and his wife Polly. Luca is my old friend Enrico's son and has come here recently. So it was natural that to visit him and to check if everything was ok for their settling down.

Om Thanvi, editor of the Hindi newspaper Jansatta invited me to his home for a party, introducing me to his other guests as "he runs a webzine call Kalpana". Surrounded by his literary friends, I felt as if I was playing a new role, used as I am to be seen as a doctor! It was a lovely evening with wonderful Rajasthani vegetarian food cooked by his wife Premlata. It was also an opportunity to meet some interesting persons like Renuka Vishwanathan and Madhu Kishwar.

Finally I saw the new central park in Connaught Place. The new metro station of Rajiv Chowk has been completed and all the "work in progress" boards have been taken off, replaced by green lawns and flowing water. There was a beautiful exhibition showing off the changes in C.P. in the central park.

***

As usual, the travels to India get over so quickly and I am back to Bologna, getting nostalgic about the India days!

***

Mermaids in Bologna

December means Christmas time and it also means "Motor show", one of the bigger annual trade fairs of Bologna. This year, for the annual Motor show, the Swatch people, makers of the small car Smart, organised a Smart Night in the historical central square of Bologna, la Piazza Maggiore. With 12 and 13th century buildings of red stone, this is one the most beautiful squares of Bologna. The Christmas lights were making it look like a fairy land.

The Smart Night brought colourful psychedelic lights, giant film screens, dances, drums, acrobats and high decible pop music to the square, creating a wonderful contrast with the old buildings surrounding the square. The beginning of the show was with Kay Rush, a half-Italian half-Japanese TV show girl, appearing at the top of one of the giant screens, with her huge image on the same screen, to give an explanation of the theme of the event - exploring the different metro-communication languages.

The flying acrobats with colourful skirts, appeared next, flying in the sky, throwing strange shadows on the walls of the old palace, doing song and music routines from some famous films, dancing in front of the giant screens showing the strange art world of Escher.

Then it was the turn of singer l'Aura. She has a real nice voice and a very distinct style of singing. Lovely. She was followed by Piero Pelu, one of the famous Italian pop stars who joined Kay Rush on the stage as a presenter.

And then it was the turn of the mermaids. They had placed transparent tubs shaped like champagne glasses, filled with water, in front of the cathedral. Three girls in swim suits appeared, did some synchronised dancing and then jumped inside the tubs to become the mermaids. All the while the upcoming young piano star Giovanni Allevi played wonderful piano. It was like a dream, though with the cold night and temperatures of around 3 or 4 C°, it reminded me of the Mumbai film heroines who stoically go through dances and songs among snow covered mountains, dressed in the skimpiest of clothes. From the vapours rising from the girls' bodies, I think that the water was quite warm, still it must have been strange to take bath in the shivering cold in one of the oldest squares of Italy!

Here are some pictures from this evening:

***

Spirit of Dilli

There was a time when Delhi was hardly there in the Mumbai films, except for that passing shot in front of India Gate or South Block with the rashtrapati bhavan in the background. As someone had cribbed after watching Kal Ho Na Ho, films do tend to distort the geography of cities, and if New York could not escape it, how could Delhi do it!

The films are such that you would think that India Gate and Red Fort are close to each other and next to the railway station and the airport, so that if you come to Delhi, you can't avoid passing in front of them.

This year, I have already seen 4 Hindi films where hamari Dilli plays a key role, and the year is not yet over. Perhaps, in 2006 there were other films too, that were based in Delhi, that I have missed. The question I am asking is, which of these films reflected the real spirit of Delhi?

It started with Rang de Basanti. In RDB, India Gate was not just a distant shot seen from the windows of the passing car or autorickshaw but it played an important role in a crucial scene along with the spacious bunglows of the ministers, not too far from it. It was essentially a south Delhi kind of Delhi in RDB, where upper middle class lives. There were a few scenes of old Delhi and the Muslim culture but they were more like cameos and didn't affect the overall voice and texture of the film, that remained essentially south Delhi. I felt that, Aamir Khan as the sikh son of a dhaba-owner and his disgruntled companions, suceeded in giving life to the growing up experience in Delhi. I could identify with it. Its language, ambience, people were the kind you find in Delhi.

Then came Fanaa, another Aamir Khan starrer. Here Delhi was just an interlude, a background to the shairo-shayari and songs. The film highlighted the touristy part of Delhi. It skimmed superficially over Delhi, not really trying to look at the life of the city. In spite of the luminous Kajol, I felt that it was a synthetic make-believe world, not really reflecting anything real about the city or its people.

The third film that I saw was Khosla ka Ghosla. It was a more of a west Delhi kind of ambience, people who usually live in Punjabi Bagh or Rajouri Garden. It was also very real. The way neighbours reacted, the way people talked and went around their lives, it was able to catch the spirit of dilliwallas. There was a part of the film dealing with Mandi house and Bhartiya Kala Kendra part of Delhi, the part involving theatre-wallas. This part was slightly less real in the way the two main actors behaved (Navin Nischol and Tara Sharma), but even in these scenes, all the side actors were very dilliwallas. KKG was also quite enjoyable in a Gulzaar-Hrikeksh Mukherjee kind of way, that was refreshing.

Finally the last Delhi-based film that I saw was Ahista Ahista. It was mainly an old Delhi, Chandni Chowk kind of Delhi, around Jama Masjid, Dariyaganj and Red Fort. In the film, at times the way the actors (Abhay deol and Soha Ali Khan) walked effortlessly from Red Fort to Niajammuddin or to Qutab Minaar did jarr a bit but overall, the ambience of narrow streets and the Muslim culture was quite real. However, the film was marred by the actors, their way of speaking, their general way of behaving, that seemed false and out of place in Chandni Chowk. Abhay Deol is a nice looking guy, reminding me of Dharmendra in vintage films like Bandini, but he did not look like or act like old Delhi person. His dialogues did not ring of old Delhi, they seemed very Mumbaiwalla. His other friends, they seemed as if they had come out of the TV serial Nukkad, falsely nice and synthetic. This does not mean that film was very bad, but in my opinion, it could not catch the spirit of Delhi.

So which of these films did catch the dil of Dilli? I think that the real competition is between RDB and KKG. Ahista Ahista and Fanaa were not about real Delhi. I can't decide between RDB and KKG.

It is difficult to decide, perhaps because the two films look at very different parts, people and cultures of Delhi. These two Delhis are quite similar geographically and do overlap, though obviously RDB is not about everyday places and persons (like the shots behind the airport or the shots at the old monuments, the scenes at India Gate and All India radio), while KKG is about everyday middle class Delhi. On just this basis, perhaps KKG wins for me.

And for you - is there a film that represents the spirit of Dilli - Delhi for you?

***

Against nature?

There was yet another debate on the TV about nature versus nurture, this time provoked by the news that the museum of natural history in Oslo is organising an exhibition on homosexuality in animals.

It is never easy to say what do we inherit from our parents through the genes and what is more a "learned behaviour" depending upon where we grow up. Somethings things that may seem clearly hereditary are not always so.

Like people often said that my voice sounded exactly like my father's. And now on telephone, my son's friends mistake me for him and my friends and colleagues mistake him for me. Is that because of genes or is it because growing up together - did I subconsciously internalised my father's voice and my son did that with my voice?

Illnesses like high blood pressure running in families, have similar confusions. Do you get high blood pressure because your ma or grandma had it or because living in the same house, you share all your habbits of eating, exercising, reacting to stress?

It is much easier to deal with physical characteristics like the colour of your eyes, or the shape of your ears. That you did get through the genes.

There are many practical implications of the final conclusions of such debates, and that is why any conclusion is hotly debated. For example, if we accept that mental illnesses like neurosis are the result of genes, then perhaps all theories of Freud and therapies like psychotherapy trying to find the cause of your illness in the way your mom wrapped your nappies when you were three months old, can be considered as useless!

Another practical example is about criminal behaviour. If we accept that criminal behaviour is because of genes, then what use is putting the fellow in the jail or worse, hanging him? What could he do, he had no choice but to follow his genes?

So to go back to the debate on the TV on homosexuality in animals, the stakes are much higher. Different religions consider homosexuality to be against nature. Here, vatican officially assumes a similar position. If we accept that animals can also be homosexual, such arguments will be difficult to sustain.

Actually such debate is not new. Some years ago there was lot of discussion about some male Humbolt penguins in a German zoo who preferred to stick with their own company while the females were left in peace.

In the debate on the TV, there were similar arguments. They said, for example: it is the stress of living in the zoo, it is the stress of increasing urbanisation, these are not real serious relationships but only playful behaviour in animals, and so on. So it will always go on, each side refusing to be convinced by the other.

***

A symphony for Bombay

It is a beautiful symphony, played by invisible beings, the kind who walk all around you every day and whom you never see. Perhaps, you are also one of them? Symphony is made even more beautiful because, each of those invisible beings is singing a different song, with a different rhythm.

Seven Islands and a Metro by Madhusree Dutta is that symphony. The film was released in some commercial theatres about ten days ago. It is rare that I get to see newly released films but this time, Mukul, my nephew and cameraman for this film, brought me a preview copy. Today, while I was watching it, I wished I had watched it while Mukul was here. In some Dvds there is a director’s cut of the film, where the director explains and talks about the film, while you watch the scenes. If I had watched it with Mukul, I could have had a cameraman’s cut of the film! The film is so beautiful that I really regret not having done that.

Seven islands is about some of the different Bombays that exist for its 15 million inhabitants and for thousands coming here every day in search of a living. Each of them sings their song.

Like the persons who hang at the top of the sky scrappers and clean glass for a living. “I like it up here, there is a kind of peace here”, one of them says.

Like the hundreds of I.D.cards with their pictures, and people standing in queues, answering questions about themselves – name, place of birth, father’s name – in English, Marathi, Hindi, Urdu…

Like the line of cement mixers trailing on the highway like giant snails, their snouts raised up towards the sky to catch the extra-terrestrial sound waves, while helicopter drones above.

Like the girl with grey eyes, who says, “I tell people on the face that I am a bar dancer. I am not afraid. You have to be made stronger to live here. Only money counts”, and suddenly her voice cracks with emotion.

Like angry women protesting against the invasion of UP and Bihar walls, “We’ll butcher you like fish.” Like Kulwant Kaur with icey hands in the story narrated by Manto, who listens to her husband brag about the six he killed and the seventh, a beautiful girl, he wanted to rape. Like the Dawood Bohra bank worker who says, “I was born here in 1944. When he said that you should go to Pakistan, I felt so bad. Why should anyone doubt my patriotism for India?”

Like all those dead and living, living together there in the cemeteries, the Europeans, the Church of England Christians, the Church of Scotland Christians, the Church of North India Christians, the Italian prisoners of war, the Japanese prostitutes and cotton traders, the Chinese.

Like the small window above the graveyard, where a swing is moving in a small room and small feet peep out and go back in. Like the tall and well built Reshma, who talks about her tom-boy days and those trying to dial a "wrong number" with her. She is the stunt women, a celebrity in her area, having done stunts for Hema Malini in Sholay. “Take a look at my pictures. In my time, I was also beautiful, why didn’t I become a heroine?” Like all those small, thin men with faces burnt by sun, who rummage through garbage, who bulldoze houses of poor like themselves, and who talk of hunger, “You can wake up hungry in Bombay but you are ready for hard work, you will not go hungry to sleep.”

Like the young man selling chai during the night. Even beggers and vendors buy the tea from them. “They can deflate the tyre of my bicycle, but I can’t give bribe. I don’t earn enough. They can do what they want.”

Another talks about his love for the girl from the other caste and how he was made to leave for Bombay while the girl committed suicide. “For a days labour, you earn 15 rupees in the village. Here I can spit out betel for 15 rupees in a day.”

Cruel, funny, tragic and comic, they all mix together in a never ending kaleidoscope, each staking their claim to life. The young boy extolling the virtues of vegetarianism, almost unaware of the violence inherent in his words. Or those who talk of the riots and because their religion does not allow them to hurt others, how they gave a couple they had discovered to others “more suitable for the job”. And the hope in their eyes that refuses to die. My future will be better, they all believe. In any case, life here is much better than what ever, I left behind, they argue, perhaps more to convince themselves than others.

The only discordant note in the symphony comes from the comments of the two writers, Sadat Ali Manto and Ismat Chugtai, and the effort to add abstract symbolism to the film, like the broken picture of Gandhi or the red shawl. Harish Khanna as Manto is suitably intense and Vibha Chibbar is a delight to watch, but their philosophical posturings sound false and superfluous like the burqa clad women pushing carts with polyfoam Mumbai maps or the burning kite or the red coloured water with I.D. pictures floating in it.

Words of ordinary people are like swords, cutting and cruel unapologetically. “No more Bihari and UP walla bhaiyas here, let them stay where they are”, says a woman bluntly. There is no need to add abstract symbolism, it is already there in plenty.

They all say that it is about money. No one talks about community, the relationships. After leaving the small towns, what communities they create? What relationships sustain them and replace the warmth they left in home towns? The film does not explore them but you get glimpses of it, like the boy running along the train, who is pulled in by others hanging at the door.

The idea of watching a documentary film for 100 minutes is a bit daunting but once the film starts, it is difficult not to get involved and forget time. Bombay never looked so beautiful as it looks in the rain scenes. Music, sound, images, people, everything fits well together.

In the end, I was feeling a bit jealous about Bombay. I have been there a few times, but my heart is in Delhi. I wish someone had made a symphony for my Dilli like this!

Below, some credits of the film.

Title: Seven Islands and a Metro
Director: Madhusree Dutta
Actors: Harish Khanna & Vibha Chibbar
Cameraman: Avijit Mukul Kishore
Editing Reena Mohan, Shyamal Karmakar
Dialogue: Sara Rai
Sound design: Boby John
Music: Arjun Sen

Note: Poster of the film if from the press kit

***

Ragging lessons

Note (2022): I had written this post in 2006, to share my own ragging experiences. It is about my positive experiences of ragging in early 1970s. If the idea of discussing ragging in positive terms upsets or triggers you, I strongly suggest that you do not read this post.

***

There are broadly two kinds of persons in the world, I thought to myself. Those who live surrounded by transparent bubbles and life’s woes seem to touch them lightly, leaving them to live in their blissful ignorance. And, those filled with angst, their sensibilities weighed down by the injustice of it all, every experience leaving a burning hole in their souls. Probably Sujit Saraf belongs to that second group, I thought to myself, as I read his article on Tehleka about effects of ragging he had received at IIT Delhi twenty years ago.

Actually his description of ragging was quite funny:

We did many things in that one month that now appear harmless and amusing. We stood on benches in the dining hall and recited the national anthem; we crawled on all fours and barked like dogs; we brought cigarettes and Campa Cola for our seniors; we cleaned their rooms; we dropped our trousers so they could measure our penises; we formed human trains — each car holding the penis of the car in front — and whistled our way through hostel corridors; we simulated orgies; stripped naked; then wore underpants over our trousers to turn ourselves into comic book phantoms.

The impact of these experiences are summed up by Sujit as, “After so many years, I can list all these forms of ‘ragging’ dispassionately, but no one should be misled. Brutality and oppression remain just that, no matter the name used for them… Ragging is a case study for Freud, nothing more.”

If Sujit belongs to the second group, I probably belong to the first. While he seems to have been traumatised by that experience, his words brought back many happy memories for me.

The first time I encountered ragging was when I went to submit some form at MAMC near Delhi Gate. A pimply seventeen, I was suddenly pulled into a small door at the side of their auditorium. Soon my pants were around my ankles and I was asked to wank. It was slightly embarrassing to admit but I didn’t know what wanking meant!

I knew the words all right, they were used often by boys, but I had no idea that you actually did something. Probably I was too busy day-dreaming or reading or playing, and though it had been many years that I had “wet dreams”, I hadn’t ever thought much more about it. I did have some vague basic ideas of what fucking entailed and that was my sex knowledge. I don't think that I thought kissing caused a woman to become pregnant, but probably I was not so sure about it.

My raggers screwed up their noses but were not too surprised, apparently they had seen other ignorant boys like me before? Any way, I was shown the simple practicality of wanking and let off. I won’t bore you with the details of my experiments with that knowledge later that day, but just for that lesson alone, the word “ragging” brings a smile to my face.

The other lesson came in Meerut a few months later, in the hostel of the medical college. Fifty or sixty boys, running around naked and doing hundred little things like the ones described by Sujit above, was an opportunity for close observation of the variations in that small appendage that is apparently supposed to the centre of men’s lives – the penis. It was the best cure possible for all those anxieties about, is it too small, is it too long, is too thin or thick or whatever, that seems to afflict many of us. It did cure me of those anxieties any way. After the first two times of being naked with other boys, any sense of humiliation or shyness disappeared.

It was fun and a way to look at things that earlier, I didn't have the courage to ask or think about.

The third lesson was about female sexuality. Fed mainly on Hindi literature, where sex is hardly ever mentioned directly, I had an idea that sex was something pleasurable for men that was “tolerated or suffered” by women. Both, male and female students of the medical college had their “anthems” full of obscenities, and it was the women’s anthem that opened the magic door for me – sex could be something desired even by women!

Probably I can come up with some more lessons that I received from ragging that perhaps today’s generation won’t care about. I am sure that today’s twelve year old know much more about sex than what I knew at seventeen. If they don’t know, perhaps internet is a better medium to learn, than other guys slightly older than them through ragging.

My parents never spoke to me about sex. With friends, one spoke about it but that was more to experiment with words and our developing identities as men, but at least, I was shy about asking any real questions. Years later, when I tried speaking about sex to my teenage son, I soon realised that he already knew much more about it and probably I could have learned somethings from him! How times have changed.


***

Note 2: After almost 18 years, this continues to be among the most popular posts on this blog. Tens of thousands of persons have read it till now.

A lot of readers get upset after reading it, in spite of my warnings.

If you have read it and you feel upset, it might be time to ask yourself what is there in it which upsets you and how you can overcome the trauma you underwent because of ragging?

 

You can also ask yourself why do you look for content which reminds you of your old trauma? Perhaps, you are caught in a cycle of negative obsessive-compulsive behaviour?

 

In the end, carrying this trauma hurts only you. I hope that you will use your feelings of anger and frustration to find a way to come out of them and heal your wounds. Consider talking about it to a psychologist or a psychiatrist, or at least to your close friends.

Contradictions

After a lazy sunday afternoon nap, we decided to watch Syriana. I was still a bit sleepy and I had been hoping for something not too complicated, so probably some bits of Syriana passed over my head without registering.

The film is complicated with different simultaneous and parallel story lines spread over different continents and in different languages, English, Farsi, Arabic and Urdu. The main aim of the film is to show how American multinationals involved in petrol extraction with active support from different American institutions, are willing to go to any length to keep on their profits, including the assassination of those who try to fight against their power. At the same time, short term thinking/planning of USA forces sometimes provide sophisticated weapons to those who later use them against American interests.

I was thinking of how so many Indian films are now equally vehement in showing nexus between corrupt politicians, underworld and other corrupted state institutions.

It is a victory of freedom of press if cinema can show such realities in so clear terms, pointing accusing fingers at the powers.

Yet, the fact that films like these can be done time and again and in spite of all the accusations, that do seem believable, nothing changes. Voters go on electing same persons, those same persons keep on doing what they were doing and public does not care. Then periodically, there are some "ritualistic cleaning" with some weakened power brokers who are sacrificed to satisfy the public hunger for justice and everything can continue as it was. It sounds very horrible and cynical and yet probably an accurate description of how "real" life is.

Coming back to Syriana, George Clooney must be passing though that "I am not just a beautiful body, I am a good actor" phase. It does seem unbelievable, his perplexity and confusion in the film, after being a secret agent for all his life in places like Beirut. The decision of Pakistani boys to be the suicide bombers is also not explained properly in the film, since at least one of them is not convinced about religious dope peddled by his instructors.

***

I always had an admiration for Isreal. There was a long time that I was convinced of having been a Jew in a previous life, who had lost his life in the holocaust. And I am deeply distrustful of religious fundamentalism of any kind, these days, especially the islamic kind. Yet, in the fight between Isrealis and Palestinians, I feel that Isreal is renegating its legacy of suffering and is behaving like the oppressive forces in nazi Germany, uncaring about the countless civilians that Isreali forces seem to crush with uncaring abandon.

Probably this feeling is because for me, this fight is not perceived as between Jews and Muslims but is seen as unequal force of strength between uncaring and powerful isrealis and desperate palestinians, trying to hold on to their homeland.

***

Journeys and People: Together in the beehive

The train journeys used to take for ever and the preparations started days in advance. Letters were written for the friends on the way, who were going to host us in their homes for a night or two. Holdalls were prepared with blankets and gaddas, thin mattresses filled with cotton, and we pulled on the straps till they all rounded up like footballs. Biji, my grandmother, prepared a big basket of puris and fried potatoes along with mango and water chestnuts pickles for the journey.

Going to Hyderabad needed two nights and we stopped on the way in Bhopal. Going to Alipur Dwar in the north-east took three nights and we stopped on the way in Lucknow and Siliguri.

In the second class compartment of the train with three tyres, train seats were wooden planks and best was to have the top berth, because then you could go up and forget about the others. The bottom berth was where everyone sat while the middle berth was kept closed till it was time to go to sleep.

As you entered the compartment you immediately measured the others sharing the space with you. Were their faces smiling or were they sour faced? How did they react to, "Uncle, can I put this here?" And then soon everyone beamed with relief since the companions of our journey were as anxious as we were to find friendly faces.

Before you knew, everyone was talking to everyone. Children sharing comics or playing ludo or exchanging stories. Women together chatting as long lost sisters from a Manmohan Desai film. Men looking with understanding nods at their wives, and talking about their own things. Didi, bhabhi, bhai saheb, dada ji, aunty ji, soon everyone had found the right words to address the others. From the open window of the train, on a curve you could see the steam rising up from the engine and specks of charcoal came inside the compartment and coated all the faces, got stuck in the hair and went down the neck into the shirts. Chuk chuk chuk, the train went, with the compartments swaying as everyone spoke to everyone else.

And by the time the shared journey came to an end, we knew lot of things about each other, and saying goodbyes was like we were leaving friends. "Write to me", "If you come to Delhi, come to see us", were exchanged with addresses. Of course, we never saw each other again, those other lives were soon forgotten, the memories of faces and names fading quickly with time.

Every time I stopped to think about it, I could see the round ball of earth buzzing like a beehive, hundreds of thousands of small cells next to each other, each with its own family and relatives and lives, each family facing ups and downs, each with children growing up, persons dying, persons getting married. Even if I didn't know about them all, I could imagine them, each family like our own, a little different in somethings, but underneath every thing else, quite similar.

***

Now even in India, there are no steam engines. Those long journeys have become shorter. Here in Europe, even when I do travel on train, mostly I avoid eye contact with others, I almost never offer to others the food I am eating, I hardly ever (actually never) take puris and fried potatoes with me and anyway, most persons have a sandwich and a paper glass with some drink. On the planes, people sitting next to me, some times smile but it stops there. Talking to others that you don't know means "disturbing them" and so everyone looks out of the window or reads or closes eyes and feigns sleep, all lost in their own worlds.

Instead, when the urge to "meet" others comes, I do blog hopping. Like, going to a site like Desipundit and clicking on a blog.

Blog-hopping makes me "meet" other persons. That boy with the red scarf around his neck and his graduation at some IIT, his face full of hope for the future. That lady next to him must be his mother, she looks so proud of him. The girl he is looking at with so much adoration on his face, is she is wife or his girlfriend? There is no picture of his father in that album, why, what had happened? After the pictures, I want to read about the things that boy has written in his blog. And then I click on a link on that blog, then on another link, hoping from one person to another. That girl, she went to India for the first time. Her name is south Indian, perhaps she was born in USA? How does it feel to be surrounded by all Indian faces for the first time in your life, when you realise that you are like everyone else? Jumping between cities and continents. Looking at photo albums and reading about the persons is so much fun. In half an hour, I have gone through three blogs, looked at their pictures, read about their profiles.

Tomorrow, I won't remember them. If not tomorrow, perhaps next week I will forget them. I never remember their names any way. And I never tag them. I like them as they are, random, unexpected, like ships crossing and the passing glimpses into other parallel universes. Sometimes interesting, sometimes ordinary. Sometimes, I don't like them so much.

They are like the companions on a long train journey from my childhood. And I think of the giant beehive, all round the world, every where people with hopes, joys, illnesses, memories, sadness, visting beautiful places, missing places and people. It is good to be part of that beehive.

***

Masala addiction

There is something in the spices, in the masala. You just have to taste it a couple of times and it enters your blood. The cells taste the fragrances enclosed in its molecules. And, then you can't resist its call. Days can pass without feeling the yearning for it. Yes I have outgrown it, you think. But the yearning comes back suddenly while you eat the wholesome nutritious, bland, spiceless food. If you are a masala lover once, you are a masala junkie forever!

Hindi films are like that. Once you have tasted them, you can't forget them. In spite of their silliness, their exagerated emotions, their illogicalities, their absent storylines, their corny songs. No, they are stupid, you tell yourself. Give me a hollywood blockbuster any day, I tell myself. A nice French or Italian flick. And then suddenly one evening, you are running to your friendly neighbourhood pirated video store, the hollywood blockbusters forgotten, your heart yearning for some song and dance masala laced with crying mothers, lovetorn couples, destines singed with unsurmountable barriers, that yet once again avoid the tragedy just by the nick. The wonderful world of Bollywood.

And then I found bwcinema dot com. Goodbye to pirated disks, that suddenly block in the middle of Shahrukh Khan telling Kiran Kher, "Mother, I am back!" You just need a good connection and you can watch all the masala without going out of your homes. Three days of unlimited films for as low as 3.99 dollars, the site said, and the suddenly the four day long weekend had found its purpose. And perhaps, this time, I am not going to fatten the Bangladeshi or Pakistani shop owners and be a traitor to India, I had thought. Perhaps, the film producers will get a percentage for each download.

I started with Morning Raga with its lovely carnatak music and a wonderful Shabana Azmi. IFFA awards and Filmfare awards followed. The first day ended with the reluctant patriotic fervor of Rang de Basanti.

I hardly slept that night, waking up at five in the morning to watch Ankahee, the Vikram Bhat-Sushmita Sen autobiography. And then I crashed, falling down asleep for eight hours straight. Chup Chup ke with crazy Paresh Rawal and Rajpal Yadav accompanied my hurridly cooked chinese noodles. A pity they had to spoil it with Shahid Kapur and Kareena.

The third day started with Corporate and I was starting to get over my yearning. I tried to follow it with Kabhi Alvida Na kehna, that had lousy print and even worse sound worthy of friendly neighbourhood pirate video shop. Is it legal, I asked myself? I mean, four days after the release of the film, here they are showing it on internet with a pirate print and they are based in USA and no one can do anything about it? May be this site is run by sons of Al Capone? Anyway, I gave up after fifteen minutes. Then I tried with Onkara. This print also looked pirated with the screen wobbling, as happens with camera prints, when someone tries to shoot the film with a handheld handycam in a cinema hall. So I shifted to Fanaa. This time the print was good even if the film's faked emotions were irritating in spite of wonderful Kajol. Finally to finish the feast, I had Chicken Tikka Masala, all about British humour about parents trying to marry off their gay son.

Now I feel like puking. My head hurts. If I look at the TV screen, red and blue spots float in front of my eyes. Wish I can burp. It is indigestion. I just want to curl up in my bed and not to think of any masala movie for a year. The yearning is gone and it seems it won't be back for long long time. Now from tomorrow, I can go back to my sane hollywood blockbusters and the intelligent Almodovars.

Hindi films? I screw my nose. They suck, I tell myself. Till the yearning comes back again, I am free.

***

Climate change in Europe

Last week I was in Geneva for a meeting. As usual, World Health Organisation (WHO) had booked me in a hotel near the central railway station. When we landed in Geneva, it did not seem like very hot, compared to the hot Bologna that I had left behind. But, when I reached my room in the hotel, it felt as if I had entered a furnace.

While the bed had a woollen blanket as usual, there was something new in the room - a small table fan. Switzerland had always been nice and cool. In the summers, it did get warm in the day but most of the time, nights were cool, needing something warm.

After the arrivasl of fans, how long is it going to take for Switzerland to turn from paradise to hot baking furnace?

During nineteen eighties in Italy, I had never seen a fan in any house or office. To be honest, I had never felt even the need for it. I think that our first table fan, we had bought it in 1993 or 1994. Then in the next years, we bought more of them, so that we had one for each room of the house. During the same years, fans were installed in our office as well. Finally, this year, we have air-conditioning, at home and in office in Bologna (Italy). Everything has happened in the last 10-15 years.

Any way the hot temperatures in Geneva had some nice side-effects also. People were having fun with the summer along the lake in Geneva. Drinking beer along the small pubs, sitting and chatting on the grass wearing bikinis and swimming costumes, swimming in the lake.

****
In Geneva I met Gregor Wolbring. He spoke about new technologies like synthetic biology and nanotechnology, and their convergence that is going to change the world completely as we know it. It is all going to happen in the next ten or twenty years, he says, and the real disabled persons will be those will not be able to afford the new technologies for enhancement of their bodies and minds.

He has a soft smile, gentle way of speaking and dreamy eyes. And he has a special wheel chair, that looks simple and has side bars, that you need to move gently to move ahead or back. Listening to him, I feel as I am transported in the world of Asimov.

Yet, take a look at his webpage and his coloumn, and check his credentials, he teaches in the university and is part of some important sounding committees. So it is no science fiction but a new reality he is talking about. He tells about it in a simple way, making it easy to understand.

For a moment, I daydream about enhanced human beings but then that images contrasts so strongly with the reality of poverty, lack of most basic things, disease and death that stalks lives in so many parts of the world! Would that dream be for all of the humanity or will it be sold to the highest bidders, I ask myself.

****
In the pictures below, I am with Gregor Wolbring.

***

Virtual holdup & hijacking

It has been sometime, while navigating on internet, suddenly a sign appears "Attention, the scanning of your system is not complete, your system is unsafe, if you want free scanning of your system to identify errors ...". I have tried to ignore it. I have tried to click on "cancel". I have tried to click on the cross at the right hand corner to close it.

No matter what I do, it takes over the webpage I am looking at and hijacks it to "www.it.bloodyerrorsafe.com", leaving me trembling with rage each time. (The "bloody" in the address has been added by me, I don't want them to claim that they are so popular that people are linking their blogs to them)!

I call the people running that site by all names possible. I walk around in the room to calm me down. And, of course, I close the internet explorer. Some times I disconnect and reconnect, hoping that they are gone. Cursing them all the time, scumbags, oro-genitally mixed up, òç*+#ò@... And I take deep breaths and tell myself, "This world is pure maya, no need to get so heated up son. Relax. It is hurting only you while those bastards, they must be smiling their way to the bank with all the money they can get from people clicking their site!"

I try to imagine where they can be based. They must have an office in Jersey island, with another hack who can't find anyone to love him hiding in Cayman island and their server running from Easter islands, with the boss sitting in Florida. Do you think I should go and apply to the international court of justice in the Hague to persecute them?

Or is it the duty of our Government to protect us from unwanted intrusers even if the gang is scattered in all the corners of the world and worse still, even if, the brother of the big boss is governing (ha, ha!) Florida!.

The list of modern stress syndromes is getting longer every day.

Like all those people sitting in their cars, stuck in the traffic and snarling with rage. Their stress has been recognised. Even people typing continuously on their keyboards have legitimate stress. And those looking at the computer moniters all day long, they are indeed stressed.

Perhaps it is time to add another stress diagnosis. Internet holdup and hijacking.

If you have gone through it, you will agree that there is no virtuality in this stress. You have no psychological pleasure in it like collecting the spam mail and throwing it in the rubbish bin and then watching it pass through the thrasher till the bits and bytes are flushed down the cyber-toilet.

So there is no other way, except to take deep breath, hold it and count up to seven, then exhale slowly. Repeat it five times.

How do you feel now brother, ready to forgive them?

Forgive those scumbags, éòù+è#@ ... Ok, let's do it five more time! Take a deep breath, hold it, count slowly upto seven and now exhale slowly.

Ignorance is better?

We were in a rural area. It was a refugee camp and I was there with a delegation of United Nation High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). We were looking at issues related to persons with disability in the refugee camps and before that visit, I had already been to some other refugee camps in Africa.

The road leading to the refugee camp, left the city to meander through fields dotted with small huts. Thin and dirty children in tattered clothes occasionally stood by the roadside to look at our big UN vehicles passing.

If outside was poverty, inside the refugee camp seemed like the land of plenty. There were lot of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with lot of expatriate staff. In the health centre, their was plenty of staff and no medicines seemed to be lacking. I had a long conversation with an Australian speech therapist working with children who had speaking difficulties, asking her about the general conditions inside the camp and the different services available there.

"What about the local people living outside the camp?" I had asked. Persons outside had looked malnourished and without any services, left to fend for themself in an isolated remote area. "No, we can't provide any services to the locals", I was told. It was because of policy decision by government here. UNHCR staff and international staff were responsible only for the refugee camp and they were prohibited from having any kind of interaction with the local population.

But international NGOs could have started separate projects for the surrounding countryside, I had insisted.Isn't it terrible to pass in front of those huts everyday and see them so poor and so vulnerable? There are only funds for emergency, no one gives money for ordinary poverty, they said.

The person showing us around took us to the high school in the refugee camp. It was a wonderful place with nice uniforms, a large field where children were playing, and some committed expatriate teachers, who explained their work including the use of internet to bring the world to the refugee camp.

I was a little upset. I thought it was discriminatory with all these resources that they had in the UN, giving the world to the refugees inside the camp walls, while just outside those walls, people of the same skin colour, same language, similar facial traits could die of hunger, their children faced malnutrition, and died of usual simple illnesses like diarrohea and mealses. So perhaps, I was condescending in my interaction with the students of 12th standard. I don't remember the exact words of my question. Perhaps it was something to do with their future.

A young man sitting at the back stood up to answer me. I think that he said some thing like, "We are prisoners in this cage. This wonderful school, these wonderful teachers, our learning internet, our learning French and English, what use is it? It only serves to make us feel worse. We have no future. UNHCR can provide only school education. There is no university here and I can not go outside the walls of this camp. And, after passing 12th, all these wonderful programmes finish. Then we go back to our families in this camp, to work in the fields. For working in the field, I don't need any of this knowledge that I have got, it will only serve to remind me about the wretchedness of my life, to know how much we are missing. It is terrible to know what we could be and be forced to be nothing."

I was suddenly reminded of this episode while reading the story "Sudama's children" about poor kids in rich private schools in Delhi in the latest issue of Outlook. "There are two kinds of pain—the pain of growing up in a jhuggi with little hope of change, and the pain of adjustment in studying with well-off kids in a private school. How do we know which is worse?"

I think of that youngman's heartbreaking answer in the refugee camp and the choices he had. Yet, compared to the life of living in poverty, outside the refugee camp, where hunger and disease are likely to kill you young and at the best, you will grow up to eke out a miserable and difficult life from the fields! What would you choose if you had this choice?

***